1. When your joints hurt it’s going to rain. I remember rolling my eyes when she said that. Until I had shoulder surgery and the Physical Therapist told me that my shoulder would bother me more when it was going to rain. “You’re kidding. I thought that was an old wives’ tale.” The PT then told me it was caused by the change in barometric pressure.

2. Don’t put metal in the toaster. I don’t think she ever told me that until after I put a knife in the toaster to get out a stuck piece of toast. I thought someone punched me in the back and then I fell against the refrigerator. That’s when she said Don’t put metal in the toaster. In my defense I was only like 8 years old.

3. Chicken soup is a cure for the cold. I looked this one up. I read in Reader’s Digest online magazine that scientists believe that it can help lessen inflammation in the lungs by lowering white blood cells. Plus it is soothing and I consider it “comfort food.”

Old Wives’ Tales that my mother wasn’t right about:

1. A girl/woman can’t bathe/shower if she has her period. Don’t worry, I always went to a friend’s house to shower.

2. No dental appointments when you have your period. Well, it sounded dopey to me, but I was all for putting off going to the dentist.

3. If you cross your eyes they’ll get stuck that way. Ummmm………that would be a no, Mom.

4. Don’t go outside with wet hair or you’ll get a cold. Not true. And maybe that’s why I always go outside with wet hair. Middle age rebellion.

My mother never told me any myths, but my older sister did. The crossed-eye thing of course. And once we visited a cave in South Dakota, and she told me if I touched a stalagmite, my fingers would stop growing. Man, did I walk carefully through the cave after that!

Once when I was a kid, I grow tired of my little brother following me around, so I drew a circle and told him that his butt would fall off if he left it. I should probably check back and make sure that he is okay….

All kidding aside, in the old neighborhood some of the kids that came from rural Mississippi and Louisiana used to wear Juju bags around their neck to protect them from harm. These bags held old bones, feathers, spices and cattle teeth (again no kidding). We thought it was pretty silly, after all, wasn’t protecting against harm the job of scapulars?

I’d have been dead long ago if the umbrella one was true. I have a habit of accidentally hitting the button on my umbrella inside and it unfurls and almost takes my eye out. Which would have made my mother feel vindicated as she thought everything would take our eyes out.

When I was very young, our family lived on a side-street in the city, just one block away from a very busy, multi-lane street. In those days, even children as young as four or five were allowed to go with a group of other children to a friend’s house, or to the local five and dime for candy, without an adult coming along. Groups of us wandered the neighborhood, but we never, ever, tried to cross that busy street. The reason? My best friend’s mother told us “Every day, a child is killed trying to cross Hampton Avenue.” And we believed her.

Is this the time to mention that she also told us, “Every time you tell a lie, you drive the crown of thorns an inch deeper into Jesus’ head?” Even at the tender age of five, I realized that one couldn’t possibly be true. Because just based on my own lies, that crown on thorns would have gone completely through his feet…. But as for Hampton Avenue, I believed.